Open letter to the Uri Security Directorate on their fox hunting response

Following the evasive response of the Uri Security Directorate to the fox hunting petition, the IG Wild beim Wild addresses an open letter to Deputy Governor Céline Huber.

Nine questions, a deadline of two weeks, and the announcement that the response, or the silence, will be made public. We document the letter verbatim.

On 24 August 2026, the Security Directorate of the Canton of Uri responded to the petition on the scientific necessity of fox hunting, which the Lucerne jurist Pascal Wolf had submitted to the Cantonal Council on 15 February 2026. The petition posed six precise questions. Not a single one was answered. Instead, the letter delivered a general statement of principle about the Swiss hunting system, without citing a single study. We have contextualised the matter on our campaign page «Stop fox hunting – write to the Uri Cantonal Council» . Because a mere contextualisation does not do the matter justice, we made enquiries, directly with the signatory of the response.

Particularly remarkable: to illustrate the diversity of Swiss hunting systems, the Security Directorate itself referred to the Canton of Geneva with its employed game wardens, without noticing that this very example supports the petition. Geneva has managed without hobby hunting of the fox since 1974. The canton thus itself provides the counter-evidence it should actually have examined.

The open letter follows the same approach as our letters to the Lucerne commission president Michael Kurmann and to the Glarus Landammann Dr Markus Heer: factual, with concrete questions, and with the clear expectation of a response. Here is the letter verbatim.

Open letter to Deputy Governor Céline Huber

Dear Madam Deputy Governor

We have taken note with dismay of your response to Pascal Wolf's petition on fox hunting, submitted on 15 February 2026 to the Uri Cantonal Council. The letter of 24 August 2026 bears your signature. We are therefore addressing you directly.

The petition posed six precise questions about the scientific necessity of fox hunting. Your response answers not a single one of them. Instead, it delivers a general position paper on the Swiss hunting system, legal foundations, sustainability, animal welfare, species protection, and an appreciation of Uri's hobby hunters. Not once is a scientific study cited. We ask you to comment on the following points.

1. The answer to a question that was never asked

The key sentence in your letter reads: «Fox hunting endangers neither the fox population nor biodiversity.» Nobody asked about that. The petition wanted to know what scientifically proven benefit fox hunting has, not whether it causes harm. Anyone who demonstrates that a measure does no harm has not said a single word to justify its necessity. Can you supply the positive proof of benefit that the petition requested?

2. The Geneva example refutes you yourself

To illustrate the diversity of hunting systems, you yourself refer to the canton of Geneva with its salaried game wardens. This very example supports the petition: since 1974, Geneva has managed without hobby hunting of the fox, with no population explosion and no aggravated disease situation. You yourself cite the counter-evidence that you ought actually to have examined. How do you explain that a reference example of your own choosing does precisely not prove the necessity of fox hunting in Uri, but instead calls it into question?

3. «May» is not «must»

Your response refers to federal competence and the federal hunting act. Both regulate that foxes may be hunted. No federal law obliges the canton of Uri to shoot healthy foxes. The canton of Zug has shown that cantonal scope for action can be used. Why does Uri invoke a federal competence where the Confederation itself leaves the cantons room to manoeuvre?

4. The scientific evidence

The published research has for years documented compensation effects in fox hunting: kills are offset by higher reproduction, better survival rates and immigration. Even shooting three quarters of a population is offset again the following year. Regarding disease control: the rabies epidemic of the 1970s was not halted by intensive hunting, but only by the vaccination campaign from 1978 onwards. As for the fox tapeworm, the French study by Comte et al. (2017) from the Nancy region shows that the infection rate rose from 44 to 55 per cent despite high hunting pressure, because immigrating young foxes carry a higher worm burden. Was this body of evidence known to the Security Directorate before it declared Uri fox hunting to be entirely harmless? The complete overview can be found in our collection Studies on the impact of hobby hunting on wild animals.

5. Luxembourg proves the opposite of what you claim

Luxembourg banned fox hunting entirely in 2015. Instead of the predicted population explosion and disease risk, the opposite occurred: the proportion of foxes infected with the small fox tapeworm fell markedly after the ban. This is neither a model nor a forecast, but a ten-year field trial with the opposite result. Together with Geneva (since 1974), there are thus two European reference areas in which abandoning hobby hunting of the fox has led neither to more animals nor to more disease. On what contrary evidence does the Security Directorate base its assumption that Uri fox hunting is necessary?

6. Fox hunting increases the health risk rather than reducing it

When fox hunting is justified by the protection of public health, the science shows the opposite. Foxes regulate mouse and rodent populations, which are considered the main reservoirs for Lyme-disease-transmitting ticks. Where fox and stone marten are absent, the infection rate of ticks rises. In the case of the fox tapeworm, hunting is even counterproductive: kills destabilise territories, increase the migratory movements of juvenile foxes and thus spread the parasite over wide areas, whereas targeted deworming with praziquantel baits demonstrably reduces the risk of infection by up to 99 per cent. The pattern is also historically confirmed: rabies was not defeated by hobby hunting but by large-scale vaccine-bait programmes; the last case of rabies in a fox in Switzerland dates from 1996. How does the Security Directorate justify a practice which, according to current knowledge, does not protect the health of the population but endangers it? Background on this can be found in our articles «Hobby hunting promotes diseases» and «Hobby hunters spread diseases».

7. The Zug SWILD report is now available

The canton of Zug is the only canton to date to have responded to the same petition with a genuine scientific study. The SWILD report clearly concludes: the fox hunting practised cannot sustainably regulate populations, does not improve disease control and is inferior to non-lethal methods. Did the Security Directorate take note of this publicly available report before answering the petition with a statement of principle without a single source?

8. Template text instead of engagement

Your letter consists of phrasing that fits any hunting petition whatsoever and therefore genuinely addresses none of them. It is the same mechanism already demonstrated by the canton of Basel-Landschaft. Does the Security Directorate consider a petition that asks solely for a review of the scientific evidence to be settled with a template text?

9. The one open question

There remains the question that your letter sidesteps: which scientifically proven purpose continues to justify, in the canton of Uri, the regular hunting of healthy foxes, when population regulation does not scientifically support it and specific problem animals can in any case be targeted and removed by the wildlife wardens?

We ask for your response within two weeks. This letter, as well as your reply or your silence, will be published on wildbeimwild.com.

Yours sincerely

What happens next

If the Security Directorate replies within the deadline, we will publish and comment on the statement. If no reply is forthcoming, we will note that too. Uri thus joins a growing number of cantons that have responded very differently to the same petition: Zug was the only one to commission a scientific study, Glarus fell silent after a brief reply, and Basel-Landschaft contradicted itself across two letters. Uri now delivers a fourth pattern: a template text that refutes itself with its own Geneva example.

The question that Pascal Wolf has put to more than twelve cantons remains the same: if no federal law obliges the cantons to hunt foxes, on what scientific basis do hobby hunters in Switzerland kill around 20’000 foxes every year?

Anyone living in the canton of Uri can take action themselves. On our campaign page «Stop fox hunting – write to the Uri cantonal council» you will find a template letter, the state of research and the contact channels to the cantonal council. Background on the entire campaign is provided in the overview «An end to fox hunting», and on the person behind the petitions in the article «Hobby hunters as false wildlife experts».